Joly gave Cleveland-Cliffs 15 days to act or risk a possible forced Stelco sale
Binance suspended transactions Thursday as the cryptocurrency exchange investigates what The Wall Street Journal described as the biggest cyber heist in history. Polymarket, a prediction-markets platform, paused trading after some users said their accounts had been drained. The two disclosures led the Journal’s Morning Risk Report, a risk-and-compliance newsletter published Friday.
The newsletter did not say how much was stolen from Binance or how many Polymarket accounts were affected.
The hack report anchored an edition that also carried a standoff between Cleveland-Cliffs and the Canadian government over steel layoffs, U.S. trade measures touching batteries and cars, and Shell’s counsel to governments about intervention in energy markets.
Cleveland-Cliffs is ruling out selling Stelco until the business improves production and 175 laid-off workers return to their jobs, the Journal reported. Chief Executive Lourenco Goncalves said the effort hinges on Canadians buying the company’s steel products. The workers laid off at operations in Ontario could be back on the job before Christmas if the actions work, Goncalves said.
The comments came amid what the Journal described as an escalating war of words between Goncalves and Melanie Joly, Canada’s industry minister. Joly has been critical of the layoffs and accused Cliffs of breaching undertakings around jobs and advocacy for trade policy that the company made to secure approval for its roughly $2.4 billion acquisition of Stelco in 2024. Joly last week gave Cliffs 15 days to act or risk fines and even a possible forced sale of Stelco.
The newsletter also reported good news for South Korean and Japanese battery makers after President Trump recently banned new Chinese batteries from the U.S. grid. Those companies invested in U.S. production for an electric-vehicle boom, the Journal noted, only to find an artificial-intelligence boom that is boosting electricity use. Battery packs can pump out their stored power whenever demand requires and help the grid take on intermittent sources such as solar and wind.
The U.S. Energy Storage Coalition, an industry trade group, says electricity stored in U.S. batteries could reach one terawatt-hour by 2032 — quadruple today’s level and enough to keep Texas, California, Florida and Michigan running at peak power for four hours.
Separately, the Trump administration has promised to ease tariffs on automakers that commit to more U.S. manufacturing, according to people familiar with the situation. The policy change emerged amid talks to get Audi to build a $4 billion assembly plant in Georgia, the people said. President Trump announced Audi’s plan for a sprawling car factory in rural Georgia — big enough to make 200,000 vehicles a year — at a campaign rally in the state on Saturday, and the deal with Georgia officials was reached earlier that day.
Shell Chief Executive Wael Sawan, who has advised governments against excessive intervention in energy markets, said: “Our counsel to governments has been: Be careful that through interventions we do not mask these important price signals which are critical to make sure that the right products are being produced for our customers.” The energy industry got a scare last month, the Journal reported, when President Trump said his administration was considering restricting U.S. diesel exports to bring down prices domestically.
The newsletter also previewed coming coverage: “AI is making political misinformation easier to create and harder to contain,” the Journal wrote, along with a newly discovered cyber flaw that “may actually be as bad as it sounds,” and a look at how much food-delivery company DoorDash is paying to acquire rival InstaCart. The preview material describes how DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, his co-founders and their army of nine million “dashers” have built the company.